Palestinians try to prevent arbitrary arrests in Hebron, are removed by police

On Sunday, the 27th of January, at 4:15pm, the Israeli army arrested 6 Palestinian boys, some of them 15 years or younger in the old city of Hebron accusing them of breaking into a house and stealing things from inside.

The soldiers took one boy who was walking with his mother and picked up another one, who was just walking down the street.

They took them from the inner older city to a place near the Avraham Avinu settlement, where they had four more boys. Palestinians are not allowed to go there, so the boys were out of sight for their families and friends.

The soldiers made the boys stand hands up against the wall for two hours. There were international Human Rights observers present from ISM and CPT, and later also from TIPH. The soldiers would not let all of them near the boys.

Some of the arrested boys were crying, one of them was not wearing a jacket, even though it was cold and sometimes raining. A Palestinian boy offered his jacked to the arrested boy and a CPT woman managed to give it to him.

At 6:15pm the army blindfolded the boys, tied their hands behind their backs and took them into an army vehicle. At this point five Palestinian women, one of them with a baby, one Palestinian boy and one Palestinian men, some of them related to the arrested children, approached the vehicle. They stood in front of it and tried to stop it from moving. The women were crying and shouting and clinging onto the vehicle, the soldiers responded in a very aggressive way, some of them removing the womens hands by force. One woman managed to open the back door of the vehicle, but a soldier closed it very quickly telling the other soldiers that maybe she wanted a beating.

After ten minutes a group of about 15 settler kids arrived applauding the army. The clapped their hands, sang and danced around the army vehicle, pushing some of the people who were trying to stop it from moving. They insulted and spat at them and tried to take cameras and bags from the internationals.

At 7pm the police arrived and told the Palestinan women to move away from the vehicle. They did so crying, and the vehicle left, taking the boys away.

The settler kids tried to attack the Palestinian women and a Palestinian boy, when they were passing on their way home. They also stole a camera of one of the Human Rights observers.

The arrested boys were released after midnight, two of them are ordered to appear in court. According to one of them, they entered the territories of the illegal settlement in order to search for old metal.